Welcome to Meditation Monday. This weeks meditation, Loving Kindness, is a meditation on mindfulness and offering peace, healing, happiness, and safety to yourself, people you know, and people everywhere.

Often referred to as Metta meditation, Loving Kindness, is a Buddhist practice that has been extensively studied for its many benefits such as increased health, inner peace, lower blood pressure, decreased stress, and mindfulness. I use this meditation almost daily and especially when my heart is deeply affected by the plight of others.

This week I have been deeply saddened and outraged by what is happening to people crossing our borders seeking asylum. I can only imagine the fear, helplessness, and despair as over 2000 children have been separated from their mothers and fathers as part of some ridiculous zero tolerance immigration law. And then they are being housed in tent cities in southern Texas where the temperatures are in the hundreds with no way to find one another. Why? is a question I am asking daily. I, too, feel my own helplessness in not knowing what to do or how to help.

Meditation is one thing I can do and invite others to join me. I have renewed my commitment to Loving Kindness meditation practice morning and night. This Metta practice opens my heart while offering myself and others positive healing, safety, and peace.

If you wish to learn more of Loving Kindness meditation, both Jon Kabat Zinn and Sharon Salzburg have written about this practice that they have practiced and taught to hundreds for many years.

My hope is that you will find this practice as meaningful as I do and that maybe, just maybe, we can create a more humane and peaceful world through extending loving kindness rather than fear. Please feel free to pass this meditation onto others so that our reach ripples toward those in need.